Hemos llegado, Part I

Oops, wrong foreign language, but it’s the only foreign language I know! It does take awhile to get used to Kiwi English, though.

Hi everyone, we are here safe and sound! Auckland and much of New Zealand is under a huge rain cloud right now, so it has been raining off and on since we arrived. When the rain is off, we have blue skies and a few clouds. When the rain is on we are being doused heavily with water and drenched through! Either way, we’re happy to be here and happy to have different weather to talk about and happy that it’s winter for us so we can cool off from the Colorado heat.

I’ll share with you how our travels went and then in Part II you’ll hear about what we’ve been doing on our first day down under.

Once we were on the final leg of the trip from LAX to Auckland, that 13 hour flight was a complete breeze!! Don and I both slept, tossed, turned, woke up for about 30 mins to stretch here and there . . . and then we finally woke up for good only to be told by the Airline Crew Manager, “Breakfast will be served in about 30 minutes.” WHAT???!!! We were bracing ourselves for the worst 13 hours in our lives on that plane in COACH and it felt like we’d only been sitting for a couple hours. But we were about 90 minutes from landing! PHEW, that was one of the fastest plan rides I’ve been on, we couldn’t believe how short it felt. We thought we’d be living on adrenaline—I’m telling you now it was pure exhaustion that got us through!

So, LESSON FOR EVERYONE: If you want to come visit us and take on that dreadfully sounding 13 hour flight from LAX, here is your schedule the day before for a short-feeling stay on a very large 747 that has no business hauling its huge ass up into the air and staying there for hours and hours, but it does anyway despite all your training in science and technology (spiteful plane!) that tells you to the contrary, you will survive both take-off and landing in this monstrously huge 2-story metal thing:

DAY BEFORE DEPARTURE: run errands in traffic and visit the mall for the last time (purposely staying away from Banana Republic because your bags are FULL missy!), fighting holiday crowds and standing in line for Starbucks Chai. Even though we did this the day before we departed, I would highly recommend doing it the day of departure as you’ll be in even more pain: have deep tissue massage and ensure masseuse concentrates on your lower and upper back as well as calves—the pain will be so intense for days that when you are finally sitting on that 747 you’ll not even recall what caused it in the first place!

Evening: skip over to friends house because they have TV and food and drinks while your house is empty and you have no TV, no chairs, no tables and are eating crappy food. Yes, they have teenage girls who always have friends over the house, but you’ll survive—they are cool girls. Then go out to dinner—AGAIN!!—and load up on carbs as you have been doing for the past 3 weeks. Make sure you are retaining fluids in all crevices of your body, you’ll need those fluids on your long journey. BUT, don’t start drinking alcohol just yet, it should only be about 7pm at this point. Go back to friends’ house, pull out the crazy games, and NOW open the wine. Stay up playing games, but the last game MUST be Trivial Pursuit and you are not going home to sleep until you finish it and someone wins, despite all thoughts that no one has ever played it so long as to actually win that game. Game over must not occur until at least 1:30am. Then drive home (only designated driver may do this part), strip off clothes, jump into your cozy (looking) air mattress, set alarm for 6 hours hence, fall asleep immediately.

MORNING OF DEPARTURE: wake up after 6 hours. Start vigorously cleaning the entire house on hands and knees and bending over a lot. Then load up car for last visit to Goodwill, then do the recycling run. Stop for Starbucks chai again so you are good and caffeinated, the false buzz that will get you through the hours to come! Clean house some more for hours, standing in between because you have no chairs to sit on, remember? Stand, stand, stand! That is your motto for the day, get those feet good and tired.

One hour before leaving for the airport: Haul all 8 pieces of very heavy luggage to car. Shower. Put on winter clothing for travel and to prepare for NZ seasons, even though it is summer where you are. Sweat. Get into car and arrive at airport 4 hours early so you can sweet-talk airline workers should something not go your way. Sit and people-watch—this is your last luxury moment for awhile, take advantage! Board plane to LAX, sit some more. DO NOT SLEEP under any circumstances on your connecting flight into LAX.

Arrive at LAX: walk miles with heavy luggage between terminals and up and down many flights of stairs. Arrive at your international departure gate and sit on floor. Beware of tossed food all over floor as terminal clearly has not been cleaned for days. Wait, DO NOT SLEEP! When airline staff arrives at counter to start check-in process, stand up!! Start to walk around, making your legs ache on purpose. Don’t forget to work on the lower back too, get it nice and tired and as painful as possible. Queue up in line as early as possible, you must be sure your bags will fit overhead, of course. Then stand in line for about one hour, holding bags on your shoulder because at any time you might be moving forward at the chance of sitting on that damn plane.

On the plane: Finally arrive at your seat, the plane should be about 1 hour late at this point from all the queuing passengers have had to do. Hurl that luggage above your head into the overhead bin. This will ensure your lower and upper back are in sync with one another, screaming for relief from the staggering agony you’ve put them through all day. Don’t forget that massage you had earlier, remember how good it was going to be for your muscles? Well now you can test that theory while lifting bags that have hung on your shoulder for hours over your head. If you are ambitious, move other passengers luggage around in the overhead bins to ensure yours fit—this will get you more of an overhead workout and start to make your arms ache as well.

Now you can sit down and watch all the rest of the passengers struggle with their own luggage and groan at their seat placement. This is where you hope and hope that no one has been assigned to the seat between you and your mate—configuration is a 3-4-3 and you’ve got one of those side 3s all to yourselves!! Having inches of extra space in coach is something to be excited about—a whole extra seat is nearly orgasmic!

“Doors are closed for departure, flight attendants please take your seat for take-off.” This announcement happens as you are backing away from the gate. DON’T BE FOOLED! Just when you think you’ll be in the air and on your way (HOW you get in the air is another feat of engineering I’ll never understand, did I mention this already??) and that you can recline and sleep for hours, STAY AWAKE! Your 747 luxury plane needs to taxi to San Francisco, it would seem, in order to take off. Be prepared to drive very slowly for approximately 45 minutes, it could be an hour. Only THEN will the plane actually take off for your ultimate destination. (Long dissertation on the impossibility of getting one of those huge ass 747 planes into the air DELETED here.)

In the air: wait for at least 1 hour when meal is served, eat meal. Wait for another hour for them to pick up meal trays—sit uncomfortably in the meantime. Then at the 2-hour mark you should be good and tired, having been up for 24 hours and muscles screaming out to you, body exhausted. Don’t forget that you just watched a pretty bad movie that bored you to tears, that will help (Failure to Launch—now I know why it failed). NOW YOU CAN SLEEP. When you wake up, you’ll be only about an hour from Auckland and then you can begin your great journey in New Zealand!

(Happy b-day Allyssa, sorry we missed 5 July this year, we accidentally crossed the international dateline and lost your b-day day! Happy b-day to my Dad too, 60 on 6 July and just married Linda on 1 July—congrats!)